


Not A Kid

by vassalady



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:16:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment alone during the war, Bucky, frustrated with himself for a botched mission, comes to a realization about himself and Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Kid

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely based a short while before the concentration camp event in The Life of Bucky Barnes.

Bucky glanced up when he heard Steve grunt. Steve had his back to him and was stripped to his undershirt, a tank top that melded to his body. Steve wrapped his arms around and started to lift the shirt. He let out a hiss as he tugged it off. Bucky’s eyes wandered over the muscles in Steve’s arms as the moved. He looked down the line of Steve’s body, that strong flawless back, to a wound on Steve’s side. It was ugly, red from blood and with skin torn.

“Fuck, Steve, did you get clipped?” Bucky said. He stood and took a step toward Steve before he caught himself. Jim and Toro were on a recon flight, and who knew where Namor had wandered off to. But Bucky still hung back, because once again, this was his fault. He should have known that it would be an ambush.

“Just a scratch,” Steve said, placing his hand over the wound. “Won’t even feel it after I finish those potatoes.” Steve threw a grin over his shoulder at Bucky, but as he moved around the tent, Bucky caught him wincing.

“Let me fix you up at least,” Bucky said. He grabbed a first aid kit and a canteen.

Steve’s eyes followed his movements as Bucky took out bandages and poured out water in a bowl. Bucky pretended not to notice.

“Hand me my pipe while you’re up?”

Bucky fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Here, old man,” he said, tossing the pipe and bag of tobacco to Steve. “Now raise your arm.”

He crouched on the ground, Steve sitting on a crate, and began cleaning the wound. Above him, Steve went through his routine of cleaning and filling his pipe. Bucky didn’t understand the habit; he’d snuck some tobacco once when he and Steve had first become partners, when he was still a teenage brat, but he found it foul. It made Steve taste foul, too, but there was little that wasn’t foul on the frontlines.

The wound looked worse than it was. It had bled during the trip back to camp, but already, it had clotted. As Bucky cleaned it up, it began to bleed again, but only a little.

He glanced up at Steve. Steve looked relaxed, but he held his pipe just a little too tight. “I’ll be done in a minute,” Bucky said as he finished cleaning around the wound.

Although Steve was stronger than Bucky. stronger than any normal human, Bucky sometimes forgot that he still was mortal. Bucky was used to feeling like the dead weight sometimes, the only one who was more likely than not to end up dead each mission. But he supposed that this was a reminder that they were all risking their lives.

Something about that thought only made Bucky feel worse about that day.

“All finished,” he said, taping down the last corner of the bandage.

As he cleaned up, he heard Steve say, “Thanks, Buck.”

“You’ve gotta keep me around for some reason.” It was meant to be a joke. Bucky delivered it with as much nonchalant cheer he could. But the silence that followed proved it had not been successful.

The awkward silence grated on Bucky. He couldn’t stand it. It reminded him too much of when his dad died and his sister left and all he had was the roaring silence that overtook him as he brawled.

“Man, what’s taking them so long?” he said, keeping his voice light. He cleaned the blood off his hands with a piece of soap from his shaving kit. “You’d think a flyby would be as quick as a flash. If it was me and Toro, I bet I could beat him there and back in half the time.”

“They can’t go blazing over the enemy,” Steve said. “They’ll get back soon enough.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Bucky knew that; it had just been a joke. But it stung that Steve had said anything, like Bucky was still a rookie and they were still chasing spies back home. He dried his hands off on his pants. “You want help peeling those potatoes?”

“Bucky,” Steve said, his voice firm.

Bucky kept his back turned. “Yeah?”

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

“I know!” Bucky let a frustrated sigh. He hadn’t meant to snap. “I’m not a kid anymore, Cap.” He finally turned and gave Steve a rueful smile. “Can’t send me to my room. Can’t afford to feel pity for myself. I even shave and all now.”

“I know.” Steve still spoke with a measured tone, moderate and careful words. He cast his eyes down, and Bucky followed his gaze. Steve hadn’t put his shirt back on. “It’s been a long few years, you and me.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “I guess it has.”

“So you going to talk to me then? Really talk to me?” 

Bucky met Steve’s gaze. He held it for a moment. Maybe he could tell Steve, let him in. But even as the thought came to mind, it passed. His brain sounded like that of a spoiled child’s, and there was no use delving into it. “It really has been a long few years,” he said at last. He approached Steve slowly, eyes trailing down Steve’s body. He made each move deliberate. “Those potatoes can wait, right?”

Steve put his pipe to his lips, but he had let it go out. So he had nothing to toy with as Bucky advanced. “You’re not a kid anymore.”

“I’m not,” Bucky said. He stopped inches from Steve. Although he had grown a lot taller, he was still shorter. He wondered what it would be like to be as big as Steve, to match him in height and girth. He supposed he wouldn’t ever know. He had, unfortunately, stopped growing last year.

But he was tall enough that he had to lean up only a little to kiss Steve. The smokey pipe taste was there, but it was faint. Steve hadn’t had the chance to properly to smoke, so Bucky took the chance to enjoy the other tastes. Steve’s sweat, his flesh, it all had a particular note that was different from others Bucky had kissed. He kidded himself into thinking it was because this was true love. Really, everyone had a different taste to Bucky, their own unique signature. And as much as he hated Steve’s smoking, that was part of Steve’s signature, too.

He pulled back, leaving them both breathing heavier. “What do you say?”

Steve took only a moment to swallow before saying, “Yes.”

With Steve already half undressed, Bucky shed his own shirt to join him. Then he grabbed Steve, and they backed toward the cot together, hands and mouths touching each other.

They had done this before. Bucky, true to his brash nature, had been the first to make a move, a simple suggestion of helping one another out. Steve had needed no persuading, however, and so began their tryst or affair or relationship, whatever it was they had.

Bucky pushed Steve down gently, aware of his wounded side. He worked open Steve’s pants and drew out Steve’s cock. As he ran his hand along it, it began to harden. Bucky sucked at Steve’s lower lip. When he broke off, he said, “What do you want?”

Steve grinned up at him, panting. “Fuck me.”

“You okay with that?” Bucky let his hand hover over Steve’s bandage.

“I’ve had worse.”

Without another word, Bucky slipped off of Steve to dig around for a lubricant. He heard Steve huff behind him. “You okay?” Bucky asked, returning to the cot.

“Just admiring the view,” Steve replied. He pulled Bucky down for a lingering kiss. “Come on,” he said, “we still have work to do after this.”

In many ways, it was unromantic the way they shed the rest of the clothes, and Steve propped his hips up with a blanket. Bucky spread Steve’s legs apart and just rested a finger against Steve for a moment before pushing in.

As he slowly opened up Steve, Bucky’s thoughts drifted. Steve was spread out before him, panting quietly, biting his lip, and jerking himself. He was spread out and open, and only Bucky ever saw him like this.

It was times like these that Bucky remembered Steve wasn’t that much older than him. When all the Invaders were there, Steve seemed old; Jim, Namor, and Steve were real adults, and Bucky and Toro were just kids playacting. But then they would get out into the field, and all those worries fell away. Fighting let Bucky forget.

Fucking Steve was like that; Bucky could forget and just get lost in the moment. In those moments, it was just him and Steve. The war was far away and unreal; Bucky’s doubts were hidden. It was just them and the movement of their bodies together, their labored breathing, their desire and pleasure blocking out the bad.

Bucky twisted his fingers, and Steve shuddered beneath him. “Come on, Bucky,” Steve said in a breath.

Bucky continued to stretch Steve a moment longer. Then he pulled out, wiped his hand on a rag, and gave himself several long strokes.

Steve watched him, which made Bucky groan, cock hardening. He liked having Steve’s attention. It was rare he got it undivided like this, and he was not wasting the opportunity. He surged forward, letting their cocks rub together. The slide was rough and stilted, but with a little lubricant, they were able to move against each other with relative ease.

Bucky pulled back to let his cock drop lower, teasing against Steve’s balls and running down his ass. They really didn’t have much time; Jim and Toro could be back any minute, and Steve was expected on kitchen duty, as usual. But Bucky wanted to have some sense of control, maybe even romanticism, that was about more than the two of them getting off. It was like chasing a shadow, however, and Bucky finally fucked into Steve harder than he intended in his frustration.

Steve didn’t mind, though. One hand gripped Bucky’s left arm; it hurt and was likely to leave a bruise, but Bucky used the pain to spur himself on. He drove his cock into Steve hard and fast. Now, it was just about getting them off as quickly and as strongly as he could. Bucky stroked Steve in time to his thrusts

His release built in his groin until, with one great thrust, he peaked and came in Steve. He rode out his orgasm with shallow thrusts, grip tight on Steve as half his mind was still aware Steve needed to get off.

He came down to find his back was starting to ache, and he had stopped jerking Steve’s cock. He forced his hand to move, sluggish as he felt, and thrust a few more times into Steve. Steve’s hand joined Bucky’s around his cock, and they worked him over together until, not long after, Steve came over their hands.

Bucky gazed down at Steve as his face relaxed into a genuinely happy grin. A smile slipped over Bucky’s own face. He liked seeing Steve happy like this. Maybe, hopefully, Steve could forget about his own worries in these moments.

Bucky suddenly found it difficult to breathe. His heart felt heavy and off-balance, like in the moments before a firefight. He pulled free of Steve and settled on the edge of the cot, Steve’s feet behind him.

“Bucky? What’s wrong?”

Steve’s hand lightly touched his back. Bucky hung his head between his legs, taking deep breaths.

“If you’re going to be sick, let me get you a bucket.”

“I’m not,” Bucky said, voice cracking. “Just give me a moment.”

Bucky wasn’t an idiot. He knew what this was. Somehow, he had come to love Steve, more than he had ever expected. It was stupid of him to love Steve, because they were at war, and the likelihood of Bucky dying before it was over were pretty safe betting odds. If either of them were going to die, i sure as hell was more likely to be Bucky than Steve.

Steve’s arm came around him. It was the same as when Bucky killed his first man. At the time, he had claimed it was fine, but that night, Steve had come to him and wrapped an arm around him. This time, however, they were both sweaty and worn from sex, and Bucky didn’t know what to do with his feelings for Steve nor the knowledge that Steve was likely to return to US soil with Bucky in a box.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Bucky silent and Steve not pressing him. Then, Bucky slipped out of Steve’s grasp, because he wasn’t a kid anymore, and they had jobs to do. They cleaned up, dressed, and reported for kitchen duty. On the way, Jim and Toro returned, and the four caught up briefly before Jim and Toro reported their findings.

“You don’t have to do this with me, you know,” Steve said as he began to scrub pots. 

Bucky picked up one that had whatever was for dinner last night still at the bottom. Frankly, he would have preferred if they had been peeling potatoes.

“I’ll do one and then goof off with Toro if it makes you feel better,” Bucky said. He wrinkled his nose before starting to scrub.

“Whatever you want to do,” Steve said.

There was something in his voice that made Bucky look at him sharply, but Steve was busy with his work, giving it his full attention. If those pots were Nazis, Captain America could have won the war single-handedly.

Bucky looked at his own pot and began to scrub it. As unpleasant as it was, there was something calming about it, the mindless repetition and the silent companionship that Steve provided.

Bucky smiled to himself. He was not a child anymore. He couldn’t afford to be selfish. However long this lasted, this thing between him and Steve, while Bucky was still alive, he was going to enjoy it. If it was all he could have, it would be enough.

It would have to be.


End file.
